Eat your veggies: How tomatoes and broccoli fight prostate tumors

Mar 28, 2012, 6 a.m.

How many times did your parents order, plead, suggest, or threaten you to "eat your veggies?" Probably, many. As a kid, did you really care about the nutritional benefits of vegetables? Probably not. However, you might want to rethink your childhood position.

A cancer fighting diet often includes generous helpings of tomatoes and broccoli. However, the medical community has discovered new vegetable benefits from these two popular foods. When you make these two foods daily components of your cancer fighting diet, they are even better at defeating and preventing prostate tumors. Who knew?

When eaten together, the effect is even greater, which is why they've achieved an outstanding reputation in the world of cancer research. Studies published in Cancer Research describe the results of tomato- and broccoli-heavy diets tested on rats. After 22 weeks, test animals -- implanted with prostate tumors before the test began -- responded by showing a 52 percent tumor shrinkage.

Even broccoli alone shrank tumors by 42 percent, while tomato (sans broccoli) diets shrank prostate tumors by 34 percent. Compared to the only other "treatment" that achieved these results (castration), eating veggies is a much more welcome option. Tomatoes and broccoli are looking more attractive all the time.

To get these wonderful vegetable benefits, it's recommended that a 55-year old man should consume 1.4 cups of raw broccoli, 2.5 cups of fresh tomato, 1 cup of tomato sauce or 1/2 cup of tomato paste daily. Since cooking (or over cooking) diminishes these vegetable benefits, eating pasta sauce made with fresh tomatoes or paste is ideal. Also, if you are not wild about eating raw broccoli, either steam or lightly sauté your veggie. Understand that cutting broccoli in half or quarters before steaming or sautéing brings out optimal vegetable benefits from this green.

For those men diagnosed with prostate tumors, these veggies offer outstanding help. Those men who have yet to develop any symptoms of prostate disease should also consider adding this cancer fighting food to the diet -- as the veggies could potentially have a preventative effect!